Episode 37 · Terror of the Zygons · Saturday 25 July 2015
This week, we’re high in the misty Highlands, out by the purple islands, being attacked by Zygons, Scotland the Brave!
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Terror of the Zygons was finally released on DVD in 2013. (Amazon US) (Amazon UK)
Terrance Dicks’s novelisation, Doctor Who and the Loch Ness Monster, was re-released to celebrate the 50th anniversary, and so it’s still actually in print. Hooray! (Amazon US) (Amazon UK)
We’re also on Facebook, and you can check out our website at flightthroughentirety.com. And please consider rating or reviewing us on iTunes, or we’ll send Angus Ferguson McRanald round to your house to play the bagpipes and drastically lower your property prices.
And coming on 1 August…
Check out our new project: Bondfinger. You can keep up with all the news on Twitter and Facebook. One week to go!
Episode 37: A Shaved Mr Snuffleupagus
· Download (36.5 MB)
Episode 36 · Revenge of the Cybermen · Sunday 19 July 2015
As our flight through Tom Baker’s first season comes to an end, we pull on a latex mask, strap on some bombs, fill our pockets with gold dust and drop down into Wookey Hole to discuss Revenge of the Cybermen.
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Revenge of the Cybermen was released on DVD in 2010. It can be bought by itself in the US (Amazon US), but in the UK and Australia it was released in a box set along with Silver Nemesis (Amazon UK).
Links and notes
In Unnatural Selection, a Season 2 episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Dr Pulaski (Diana Muldaur) is cured of some terrible aging makeup by a quick trip through the matter transporters. Coincidence? Probably.
The 1970s Japanese TV Series Saiyūki was dubbed into English by the BBC and broadcast under the title Monkey in the UK and Australia, with David Collings (Vorus) as the eponymous Monkey God. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation often ran it in the traditional 6.30 PM weekday timeslot that rightfully belonged to Doctor Who.
Brendan’s mysterious claim that Kellman was a collector of James Bond memorabilia will become clear if you just check out this page here.
Cottage Under Siege was a brilliant Doctor Who fanzine from the wilderness years, edited by Neil Corry and Gareth Roberts. There were three issues, published in 1993 and 1994. I’d love to see it again. Anyone?
The Doctor Who Monster Book, by Terrance Dicks, was published by Target Books in 1975. It was Nathan’s first introduction to Doctor Who, so we have that to thank it for. It is, sadly, currently out of print.
Harry Sullivan’s War, by Ian Marter, was a spy thriller published by Target Books in 1986, in the same month as Marter’s death. It’s out of print too, but if you’re keen you can almost certainly get hold of a second-hand copy through Amazon.
Brendan
I, Davros is a series of four Big Finish audios chronicling Davros’s life from his teens up until the events of Genesis of the Daleks.
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Brendan is on Twitter as @brandybongos, Nathan is @nathanbottomley, Todd is @toddbeilby, and Richard did have a Twitter account once, but he spoke to it in ALGOL that one time and it exploded. You can follow the podcast on Twitter as @FTEpodcast.
Episode 35 · Genesis of the Daleks · Sunday 12 July 2015
Our weekly flight through Tom Baker’s first season continues with an episode made entirely of thirty foot thick reinforced concrete. That’s right, it’s time for that 1975 classic, Genesis of the Daleks!
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Genesis of the Daleks was released on DVD way back in 2006. (Amazon US) (Amazon UK)
Links and notes
Commedia dell’arte is a genre of theatrical comedy featuring an array of various stock characters. It dates from 16th century Italy, but is based on a tradition that goes all the way back to Greek New Comedy from the end of the fourth century BC. So does that make Davros just the latest iteration of Pantalone?
Severin is the hero of Venus in Furs (1870), a novella written by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, who gave his name to something called masochism. Probably best not to look that word up on Google.
Sadly, I’m unable to locate the Parliamentary speech made by a Conservative MP in the 1990s, in which he quoted Davros’s virus speech from Part 5 of this story. Fact fans will be able to corroborate its historicity, however, by referring to Miles and Wood’s About Time volume 4. (Amazon US) (Amazon UK)
Episode 34 · The Sontaran Experiment · Saturday 4 July 2015
This week, Flight Through Entirety is on location in Dartmoor, testing our resistance to fear, burning, pressure, fluid deprivation and immersion in liquids, as we discuss the third story of Tom Baker’s first season, The Sontaran Experiment.
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The Sontaran Experiment was released on DVD in 2006/2007. (Amazon US) (Amazon UK)
Links and notes
Fans of posh white people living in orbital space stations will enjoy The Ark in Space, of course, and also Elysium (2013), which makes reasonably good use of Jodie Foster, whatever Brendan says.
Dr Josef Mengele worked as an SS Officer in Auschwitz and performed brutal and sadistic experiments on some of the prisoners, as well as assigning many to the gas chambers.
Episode 33 · The Ark in Space · Saturday 27 June 2015
Todd has given that helmic regulator quite a twist, I’m afraid, and we’ve found ourselves in the year 16,087, on a space station being menaced by bubble wrap and fibreglass ants. And still it’s one of the best Doctor Who stories to date. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you The Ark in Space.
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The Ark in Space Special Edition was released on DVD in 2013. (Amazon US) (Amazon UK)
The novelisation, Doctor Who and the Ark in Space, written by Ian Marter himself, was re-released to celebrate Doctor Who’s 50th anniversary in 2013. (Amazon US) (Amazon UK)
Links and notes
Fans of this story and of Revelation of the Daleks will enjoy a delicious serving of Soylent Green (1973). (Spoilers: It’s people.)
Sorry, dear listeners, we don’t have any pictures of Ian Marter being giantly muscular. And don’t think I didn’t spend time looking.
J. V. McConnell, (1962) “Memory transfer through cannibalism in planarians”, Journal of Neuropsychiatry 3 suppl 1 542-548. (See, we can be academically rigorous if we put our minds to it.)
I’m not sure that Ridley Scott has ever actually admitted to ripping off this story in his film Alien (1979), but that hasn’t stopped people from speculatingaboutthepossibility.
We haven’t yet managed to upload Todd’s interview with Lis Sladen, but we promise we’re working on it. Keep an eye out for an announcement in the shownotes over the next few episodes. In the meantime, you can enjoy Lis Sladen’s second appearance in this 1972 episode of Z Cars, directed by The Underwater Menace’s Julia Smith.
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Brendan is on Twitter as @brandybongos, Nathan is @nathanbottomley, Todd is @toddbeilby, and Richard adores all of you and can’t wait to chat to each and every one of you in person. You can follow the podcast on Twitter as @FTEpodcast.
We have a new Doctor, and a new release schedule. In the first weekly episode of Flight Through Entirety, Brendan, Nathan, Richard and Todd, the sort of girls who give motorcars pet names, discuss Tom Baker’s first ever Doctor Who story, Robot. Please do not resist. We do not wish to cause you unnecessary pain.
If, like me, you’re disappointed that Miss Bassey won’t be singing the theme to the next Bond film, SPECTRE, you can console yourself by remembering the valiant It’s Got To Be Bassey campaign. Bless you, boys.
Some moments in this story are reminiscent of Terrance Dicks and Malcolm Hulke’s second-season Avengers episode The Mauritius Penny, which exists on YouTube in its, er, entirety.
Episode 31 · The Pertwee Retrospective · Saturday 13 June 2015
In yet another Very Special Episode, Todd joins Brendan, Richard and Nathan for a retrospective of the Pertwee Era. Liz, Jo or Sarah? Peladon, Spiridon or Exxilon? And, the most important question of all, which 70s sitcom would have been most improved if they’d only had the foresight to cast our very own Richard Stone?
Linx
We mention, with frank admiration, two novels by David McIntee: a Virgin Missing Adventure, The Dark Path, featuring the Second Doctor, Jamie, Victoria and the Master, as well as a BBC Past Doctor Adventure, The Face of the Enemy, in which, while the Doctor and Jo are visiting Peladon, the UNIT team join up with Barbara and Ian to fight the Master.
Mark Gatiss reads the novelisation of Planet of the Daleks. (Audible US) (Audible UK)
Birds of Prey (2002) was a short-lived American TV series in which three female superheroes join with Batman’s butler to fight metahuman crime in New Gotham City. Which sounds fantastic, but isn’t, apparently.
There’s no need for you to watch Ali MacGraw and Ryan O’Neal in Love Story (1970) now that Richard has given away the ending.
The Queen Spider pays a pivotal role in the appalling 2002 South Park episode Red Hot Catholic Love. She sounds like Eric Cartman doing an impression of the Great One: take a look.
Geoffrey Beevers reads the novelisation of Colony in Space, Doctor Who and the Doomsday Weapon. (Audible US) (Audible UK)
Fans of the very worst things imaginable will enjoy the robot dog from Battlestar Galactica (1978), which is, alarmingly, played by a chimp in a suit. You can read the appalling history of this character here.
Episode 30 · The Monster of Peladon, Planet of the Spiders · Saturday 30 May 2015
In an alternately languid and lachrymose episode of Flight Through Entirety, Brendan, Richard and Nathan spend a hilarious 30 minutes moaning about The Monster of Peladon, before farewelling Jon Pertwee’s Doctor in Planet of the Spiders. Tears, Sarah Jane? Of course they are!
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If, after everything we’ve just said, you want to revisit The Monster of Peladon, you’ll be delighted to learn that it was released as part of the box set Peladon Tales in the UK and Australia, and on its own in the US. (Amazon US) (Amazon UK)
Planet of the Spiders was released on DVD in 2011. (Amazon US) (Amazon UK)
Gareth Hunt played Mike Gambit in The New Avengers in 1976–1977, while the role of Steed was played by Patrick Macnee in a corset.
Jon Pertwee’s final memoir I am the Doctor! was published postumously in 1996. It’s out of print, but still available for fabulous amounts of money. (Amazon US) (Amazon UK)
Whodunnit? was a 1970s panel game show thing, which ran on for six seasons on ITV. A murder mystery was acted out, and the celebrity panellists would have to work the identity of the murderer. Jon Pertwee took over from Edward Woodward as compere at the start of the second season. You can get a taste of it from this clip on YouTube. The first five seasons have also been released on DVD.
In the 1990s, BBC Radio released two new audio stories, written by Barry Letts and starring Jon Pertwee, Elisabeth Sladen and Nick Courtney. There were The Paradise of Death and The Ghosts of N-Space, both of which are available on iTunes.
Richard
In 1971, ITC released Jason King, starring Planet of Fire’s Peter Wyngarde as the dashing and indescribably ugly Jason. Buy it on DVD! (Amazon US) (Amazon UK)
We’re also on Facebook, and you can check out our website at flightthroughentirety.com. And please consider rating or reviewing us on iTunes, or I’ll come round to your house and draw a picture of a little girl on one of the pages of your favourite Ladybird book.
Episode 29 · The Time Warrior, Invasion of the Dinosaurs, Death to the Daleks · Tuesday 19 May 2015
So, we’ve changed the desktop theme, and we’re ready to start on the delightful Jon Pertwee’s final year on Doctor Who, as we discuss the first three stories of Season 11: The Time Warrior, Invasion of the Dinosaurs and Death to the Daleks. Oh, beshrew me, but I grow fond of this fellow!
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The Time Warrior was released on DVD in 2007/2008, including an option to watch a version of the story with acceptable special effects. (Amazon US) (Amazon UK)
Invasion of the Dinosaurs, sadly, has no such option. It was released as part of the UNIT Files box set in 2012. (Amazon US) (Amazon UK)
And finally, Death to the Daleks was released on DVD in 2012. So there’s that. (Amazon US) (Amazon UK)
The Time Warrior
Mark Gatiss and Katy Manning are among the contributors to the BBC Radio 4 documentary Black Aquarius, which discusses the wave of interest in the occult which washed over British popular culture in the 1970s. Or if that’s no longer available, fans of the 1970s might enjoy Cilla Black singing Aquarius instead.
I searched and searched for the interview with Peter Cushing posted on our Facebook page by friend-of-the-podcast John Edwards Davies. But I couldn’t find it. In the meantime, here’s Peter Cushing being interviewed about the Hammer Horror films by Terry Wogan in 1988.
Moonbase 3 was a BBC science-fiction series designed to be Terrance Dicks and Barry Letts’s escape route from Doctor Who. Dr Elizabeth Sandifer is less than impressed with it.
I wish I could find John Molyneux’s video of dinosaurs snogging to the tune of Je t’aime, but just I can’t. I remember seeing it in the 90s, and it was superb. Anyone who knows where it is, please, please, let me know the URL and I promise I’ll post it.
The novelisation of this story is called The Dinosaur Invasion, and it’s brilliant. It was originally released in 1976 with a fab pop-art cover by Chris Achilleos, and then it was re-released in 1978 with a more conventional cover by Jeff Cummins. You can compare the two here. The audiobook is read by Martin Jarvis, and it’s great as well. (Audible US) (Audible UK)
Death to the Daleks
We discussed Erich Von Däniken’s crazy Chariots of the Gods? a few episodes back. This story, with its tales of Exxilon astronauts building pyramids in Peru, is not the last time that this book will be relevant.
Fans of romping adventure romps will enjoy She, by H. Rider Haggard, first published in 1886. Fans of Ursula Andress will enjoy the film version starring Ursula Andress, first released in 1965.
Episode 28 · Planet of the Daleks, The Green Death · Saturday 25 April 2015
In a heartbreaking series finale, Brendan, Todd and Nathan say goodbye to Katy Manning, as we discuss naked aliens, two-syllable names, dog-headed maggots and patronising the Welsh. That’s right: it’s Planet of the Daleks and The Green Death. Goodbye, Jo. You were fantastic.
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Planet of the Daleks was released in 2009/2010 as part of the Dalek War box set. (Amazon US) (Amazon UK)
The Green Death: Special Edition was released on DVD in (Amazon US) (Amazon UK)
Planet of the Daleks
Mark Gatiss gets to read his very favourite Target novelisation, Terrance Dicks’s Doctor Who and the Planet of the Daleks. Which is nice. (Audible US) (Audible UK)
David Graham was once of the original Daleks way back in 1964. In 2015, at the age of 88, he reprises his role as Lady Penelope’s chauffer Parker in Thunderbirds Are Go. You can see the trailer for it here.
Brendan mentions a very rude re-edit of Jon Pertwee reading the Planet of the Daleks novelisation. It’s by the Doctor Who Breastoration Team, so you’ve been warned.
And here’s a comparison of the 1976 cover of Terrance Dicks’s novelisation and Clayton Hickman’s loving tribute to it for the 2009 DVD release.
The Green Death
Rachael Carson’s 1962 novel Silent Spring talks about the damage caused to the environment by the use of pesticides. We talked about it when we discussed Planet of the Giants, oh, so long ago. (Amazon US) (Amazon UK)
Todd picked the Sarah Jane Adventures season 4 serial The Death of the Doctor. It’s a DVD extra on The Green Death: Special Edition, so you might already have a copy without even realising it!
Brendan
The Big Finish Companion Chronicle Find and Replace, features Katy Manning playing both a future Jo Grant and the inimitable Iris Wildthyme.
Nathan
In 2015, Russell T Davies had three linked shows on Channel 4 in the UK: Cucumber, Banana and Tofu. Cucumber follows the story of Henry Best, a 46-year-old gay man living in Manchester, Banana is an anthology show, mostly featuring younger queer characters from Cucumber, and Tofu consists of actors from the other two shows and ordinary people discussing issues of sex and sexuality.
